Movie-A-Day #178: Battleship Potemkin (1925).

June 27, 2011

On this day in 1905, sailors aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin began a mutiny against harsh conditions on the ship. The protest spilled over onto the port in Odessa, where a crowd of thousands rallied in support of the sailors. The resulting riot heightened anti-Tsarist sentiments and eventually led to the Communist revolution of 1917. Sergei Eisenstein’s groundbreaking film “Battleship Potemkin” tells the story from the Soviet point of view, but it is also a landmark in the history of film and a must-see for any serious student of cinema. The Odessa steps sequence in particular has been the subject of countless tributes and homages over the years.